I am Not Good Enough

I think I promised myself that I would never write about my insecurities on here.

But I'm starting to believe that it's important to write about everything.

So here it is...

"I am not good enough."

It's that nagging voice in the back of your mind that reminds you of all the things you aren't good at and won't ever be. It's that weight in the pit of your stomach when you feel inadequate. 

And those nagging voices and heavy weights come a lot more often than we would like to admit. So we wallow in them, sometimes with screams and hot tears streaming down our face, sometimes with silence, sometimes with angry criticism of others... But none of it helps our crippling feelings of not being good enough. 

So then we fight back those feelings with words like "I am good enough. I am smart enough. I am pretty enough. I am spiritual enough." And on and on it goes... The never ending battle of us trying to convince ourselves that someone will love us if we are just enough of something or other. If we are just good enough. 

But you know what?

Screw the idea of good enough. 

You know what's good enough?

A  paper that you stayed up all night to finish because it's already late and it barely makes sense but it gets at least a C. 

An assignment you finished last minute but you have only 5 minutes left before class for you to print it and run to class so you can't make it any better. 

An outfit that looks okay but doesn't make you feel like a rockstar.

Eight hours worth of sleep that doesn't quite give you the rest you need. 

A joke you find hilarious but when you tell a friend, they only give a half-hearted laugh.

Accepting 2nd place because you couldn't get yourself to work harder to get 1st. 

That is good enough.

I am not good enough. 

I am good. I strive to be better but I am good. 

Good enough is what you settle for. 

I am not good enough. I am not something that you settle for. I am not just mediocre.

I have symphonies in my lungs.

Novels in my fingertips.

Adventures in my feet.

Encyclopedias in my mind.

I have lived a life that no one else has lived, that no one else can live. 

I am good. I am great.

This idea that we use the very same words to try to encourage ourselves and to accept something that is less than what we find desirable is absurd to me.

Why do we accept good enough as an idea of comfort?

It's not comforting to think that I am of the same caliber as a crappy paper or an ok outfit.

But I guess that's good...because I'm not of the same caliber, not even close.

We have to stop believing that we are just good enough.
We have to stop saying "I'm good enough" as something to comfort ourselves.

Because all at once we are utterly worse than we can ever think we are and greater than we give ourselves credit for. 

We have to stop believing that our attempts at good enough will make us lovable.

Because all at once we are not worthy of an ounce of love but yet have the 

the opportunity to receive the greatest love that anyone could ever know. 

I am not good enough but I'm starting to see that as a good thing.

I am good. I am great. I am more than enough. I am known. I am loved.

At the end of the day, if I am secure in the knowledge that I am loved, then I can be who I am intended to be, it doesn't matter who thinks I am not good enough... even if that person is me.